Mark Dredge asked on Pencil and Spoon for bloggers to name their "awards" under the following categories. I thought, despite my mumblings about such stuff, I'd not be a miserable old git and give it a go. So here we are:
Best UK Draught Beer: Marble Pint. Honourable mentions to: Phoenix Arizona and Lees Brewer's Dark.
Best UK Draught Beer: Marble Pint. Honourable mentions to: Phoenix Arizona and Lees Brewer's Dark.
Best UK Bottled Beer: No idea at all.
Best Overseas Draught Beer: Brauerei Roppelt, Stieberlimbach, Franconia; Keller Bier. Lager perfection.
Best Overseas Bottled Beer: Girardin Gueuze, but most gueuze would get my vote, as it is just such a change and contrast to my normal drinks
Best Overall Beer: Marble Pint. As good as it gets really. Bitter, hoppy, decent body, right colour, cask conditioned. What's not to like?
Best Bottle Label or Pump Clip: No idea.
Best UK Brewery: Marble. It just has to be. They are on blob at the moment; pale or dark, they can do it and do it really well. Honourable mentions to Phoenix for consistently great beers and Mallinsons for brewing excellent examples of my favourite beer style - pale and hoppy.
Best Overseas Brewery: Brauerei Roppelt. To experience their keller beer is to see how good and how drinkable bottom fermented beer can be.
Pub/Bar of the Year: The Baum Rochdale. Just a great and welcoming pub with fantastic staff and superbly kept and varied beer. Honourable mentions to the THT of course and Zum Uerige, Dusseldorf, the best pub in Germany in my humble opinion. I never tire of it. But in truth there are a lot of great pubs if you know where to look.
Beer Festival of the Year: GBBF. What could be better?
Supermarket of the Year: No idea at all.
Independent Retailer of the Year: As above.
Online Retailer of the Year: As above.
Best Beer Book: GBG 2009. Only as I use it a lot and I haven't got my mitts on Hops and Glory yet.
Best Beer Blog: Mine of course, but I do like Cooking Lager for a laugh. Best other "serious" beer blog has to be Pete Brown's. A proper beer man him (and that counts for a hell of a lot in my book) and it shows in his writing. Honourable mentions go to Impy Malting's deliciously observational blog. (Why can't I comment on it?) and Boak and Bailey''s thoughtful stuff, which always interests.
Best Beer Twitterer: It's all a bit silly really.
Best Online Interactive Brewery: Neither know nor care. Sorry.
Food and Beer Pairing of the Year: Lees Brewer's Dark and Smokey Bacon crisps.
Open Category: You Choose: Oddest Beer Moment: Visiting Brauerei Hebendanz in Forchheim. It is just utterly weird! See my blog entry for details. Biggest wish (1): that my fellow bloggers would get out into the pub more. Biggest wish (2): that the pound would start kicking the euro's arse. Fat chance of that one.
Next Year I’d Most Like To... Be around to drink good beer wherever I can find it
Full marks for avoiding miserable gitdom there, T.
ReplyDeleteI'll be hitting Uerige next week. Anything in particular I should be looking out for?
Lees Brewer's Dark beer of the year ... that's taking your Lees obsession a bit too far
ReplyDeleteBN. Well drinkwise it is alt all the way. Go early and go to the schwemme where regretfully it is a smoking area hence going early. It is all good though.
ReplyDeleteAnon. Blogs should be provoking and sometimes tongue in cheek. Besides I like it and its my choice and my blog. Besides
Cool. I'll bring my meerschaum.
ReplyDelete...and the Bah Humbug award goes to .................. Tandleman.
ReplyDeleteUerige is proababy the nicest beer of the alt imho, due to it having some bitterness and hop character. They do prooduce some interesting stronger bottled stuff, but I'm not sure of it's availability.
ReplyDeleteBut the brewpub in the north of the old town, Im Füchschen, is probably the best pub, for atmosphere and comically camp and delightfully sarcastic waiters. Don't miss out on the Christmas market gluhwein though!
Truly honered Tandy. Love your work too.
ReplyDeleteCheers, Dominic. Füchschen's on the list, though unfortunately the Christmas market will have shut up shop by the time I arrive.
ReplyDeleteGreat to see we can agree on Pint - great beer! Brad/Dubbel's beer of the year too. They must be doing something right up there!
ReplyDelete@ BeerNut : re christmas market, Düsseldorf isn't quite Weihnachtsmarkt heartland, so you're not necessarily missing much... Besides, if it's shopping you're after central Düss' offers many opportunities to misuse your credit card.
ReplyDeleteZum Uerige is Alt-only, although they do have a bottled Weizen that's erm, closer to a Kölsch than to a Bavarian Weizen, but don't mention it ! Regarding takeouts, from the servery at the front, there's a minimal quantity of 4 bottles, IIRC.
Im Füchschen are likely to still have some of their Weihnachtsbier, which is slightly stronger than the Alt at 5,2%. It also comes in bottles, which you can buy from little booth on your left as you enter.
Apart from that, in Düsseldorf there's quite a few museums (including the K20 and K21 art collections)and interesting buildings to see. The monument commemorating the battle of Worringen (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Monument_of_ddorf.JPG)is a pretty unusual sculpture that's not exactly glorifying war, and as such a rather unusual one worth seeking out.
Thanks Laurent. I've only two days there. I'm sure I won't be bored.
ReplyDeleteCheers Jeff. At least I did join in. The Christmas spirit is slowly entering my miserable gitness. Have a good one Mate.
ReplyDeleteSurely any praise for The Cookster has to also be a nod to APRK, The Chronicles, and now IGNR??? Thanks Herr'man.
ReplyDeleteWholeheartedly agree about Marble Pint... love that beer!!!
ReplyDeleteThis is not amusing Herr'man. I've done a lot bringing tasteful nudes to this medium, now one of your mates, or who knows, maybe even you, is trying to out do me by bringing porn in. I will not compete with you. I refuse to publish fornication of any sort. You got that?? If you want to be the Larry Flynt of blogger scum, then so be. I'll be taking the high road.
ReplyDeleteNo worries Sausage Old Son. The offending article has been removed and you are restored to sole purveyor of tasteful nudes. Apart from your self portrait - obviously.(-;
ReplyDeleteThanks for the mention. Much appreciated.
ReplyDeleteI guess this year, we should make the effort to try something from Marble then, since everone is raving about 'em.
Hope to get youse to the other bestest Lagerbier vom Fass place next time: Br. Griess in Geisfeld. (And then I hope it'll be in typical form! It does vary more than Roppelt does.)
ReplyDeleteIs the Marble substantially different today from, say, two years ago? Because IIRC, I wasn't all that blown away by the beer when we were there back then. The place itself though...
Düsseldorf for 2 days? Perfect. Not long enough to burn out on Altbier, and yet long enough to enjoy quite a bit from all of them.
Dominic - While I like Füchschen, it doesn't match up to Uerige in terms of atmosphere (in my opinion of course.)
ReplyDeletePersonally again, much as I like Uerige Alt, I reckon F Schumacher's alt is the finest, with its resiny bitterness and balancing malt. A classic. The stronger beer you are thinking of is probably the 5.6% "sticke" beer, produced twice a year.